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35tii Congress, ) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. C Mis. Doc. 
1st Session. \ ( No. 46. 



BOUNTYLAND TO VOLUNTEERS OF THE SPIRIT LAKE 

EXPEDITION. 



RESOLUTION 

OF 

THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF IOWA, 



Granting bounty land to the volunteers of the Spirit Lake expedition, in 

March, 1857. 



February 9, 1858. — Referred to the Committee on Public Lands and ordered to be printed. 



JOINT RESOLUTION to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, 
asking for bounty land warrants for the volunteers of the Spirit lake expedition. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States : 

Your memorialists, the general assembly of the State of Iowa, re- 
spectfully represent, that whereas some time in March, 1857, a party 
of Sioux Indians attacked and destroyed the entire settlement at 
Spirit lake, in Dickinson county, of this State ; and whereas, when 
the news reached Fort Dodge, a party of over one hundred men immedi- 
ately put themselves under the command of Major William Williams, 
and marched to the scene of slaughter to protect the living, (if any 
had survived the general massacre,) give the dead a Christian burial, 
and punish the savage intruders ; and whereas this party of volun- 
teers endured almost unheard-of hardships, being on the continued 
march for eighteen days, crossing swollen streams, marching over 
drifted snow and almost pathless prairie, alike destitute of tim- 
ber and inhabitants, and this, too, in the most inclement weather, 
so cold that two of the number, Captain J. C. Johnson and William 
Burkholder, perished and were lost on the prairie, while all under- 
went almost unendurable hardships, many being frozen and maimed 
for life ; and whereas, by the self sacrificing perseverance of these 
men, several families in southern Minnesota were rescued from the 
perils of savage warfare, and saved from death by starvation, and the 
victims of Indian butchery were decently interred: Therefore — 

Your memorialists petition that you give and grant to each person 
engaged upon that expedition who received an honorable discharge 



BOUNTY LAND TO THE SPIRIT LAKE VOLUNTEERS. 



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a military bounty land warrant, calling for one hundred and sixty 
acres of land, and provide that said warrant can be located on any 
land upon which the Indian title is extinguished, has been surveyed, 
and is not otherwise appropriated. 

And your memorialists would further petition that the heirs of 
Captain J. C. Johnson be given and granted one section of govern- 
ment land, to be selected by said heirs from any land as above described ; 
and that the heirs of William Burkholder be given and granted one 
section, to be selected by said heirs, as above prayed for in the case of 
Captain Johnson. 

Resolved , That the secretary of state be instructed to forward a copy 
of the above to Congress. 

STEPHEN B. SHELLEDY, 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
OR AN FAVILLE, 



Approved January 30, 1858. 



President of the Senate. 
RALPH P. LOWE. 



Office of Secretary of State, 

Des Moines, February 1, 1858. 
I, Elijah Sells, secretary of state of the State of Iowa, hereby cer- 
tify that the foregoing is a true copy from the original roll on file in my 
office. 

ELIJAH SELLS. 



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